Green Ronin Crowdfunding Legal Defense Fund In Fight Against Diamond Distrubutors

Green Ronin Publishing has set up a crowdfunding campaign to help cover legal fees fighting to get back their inventory from Diamond Comic Distributors in what it describes as "a dire financial threat to our company, not just today, but well into the future".

Diamond, which filed for Bankruptcy in January, still holds the stock of Green Ronin and over one hundred other companies in its warehouse, and has asked the court for ownership of that inventory so that it can liquidate it and pay its creditors. The distributor, while being mainly comic-book focused, also serves as distributor for some toy and TTRPG companies, including Green Ronin, Paizo, Goodman Games, and Roll For Combat.

The GoFundMe had raised $17K at the time of writing, with over 200 donations.

Paizo Publishing, also affected, has announced that its upcoming releases will not be available at major bookstores or at Amazon because the company has stopped shipping products to Diamond. This includes 12 August releases and 10 September releases, such as Starfinder Player Core, Starfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Battlecry, and more.

The court has scheduled a hearing on July 21 to hear objections from the affected vendors.

My name is Nicole Lindroos, co-owner of Green Ronin Publishing. Diamond Comic Distributors' recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy has impacted over 100 independent publishers, including Green Ronin, putting us in a very precarious position. Diamond is attempting to use a legal technicality to claim ownership of millions of dollars worth of consigned inventory, which amounts to several hundreds of thousands of dollars for Green Ronin Publishing alone. This is stock that we still own and have not been paid for.

This is a dire financial threat to our company, not just today, but well into the future. We must secure legal representation immediately before the deadline to do so passes.

While there is no "good" time for someone to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of your property to sell for the benefit of their biggest creditors, it is especially challenging given that Gen Con is weeks away. Gen Con is not just a convention for us, it's our most important annual event for connecting with TTRPG enthusiasts, our business partners, and our community, and this year is no exception. We're launching new products and have already committed significant funds to cover everything from booth space, travel (flights, rooms), and most critically, the production of new books and merchandise specifically for the show floor.

Diamond’s bankruptcy and this legal action also mean that Green Ronin has lost its book trade distributor. We are looking for a new partner, but that will take some time. Book trade sales of literary licenses, currently The Fifth Season and The Expanse, are a key part of our strategies for those games. This is especially bad timing for The Fifth Season RPG because we recently received final approvals from N.K. Jemisin and the game is ready to go to print.

We simply don't have the cash on hand to do all of this, pay for an attorney, or participate in any collective legal actions with other publishers in our same position.

The banks are stopping at nothing to wring every last dollar out of Diamond - including taking several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Green Ronin product to sell in order to pay Diamond’s debts - but they can't do that, and we've got a legal agreement that says as much. Now, we just need to secure a law firm to represent us in the courts.

The funds raised through this campaign will be used directly to cover the escalating legal fees associated with fighting Diamond's claim in bankruptcy court. This includes attorney retainers, court filing fees, and the costs of pursuing every possible avenue to recover our inventory and protect Green Ronin's assets.

 

[Jd Smith1]

You certainly seem to be acting like a mouthpiece for Diamond, the receivers, or those creditors who stand to benefit. Can you clarify that you have no financial interest in this case?

Every creditor is going to be in the red when the dust settles.

I'm not defending Diamond. I'm just pointing out, again and again, that this is not some result of a dark conspiracy, but just a routine event. The court handling this case has a docket jammed with bankruptcies. Companies go under all the time.

Financial interest? That's laughable. Distribution of print books is not an investment for the 21st Century. Nor does anything posted here in any way affect the outcome. I said quite a while ago that the major creditors will get the lion's share of what can be extracted, and that will be the end of it.

This is a routine event. The time to have taken an interest was in the spring of 2024.

 

[The Soloist]

I can't determine if this thread has turned into an Alignment debate or a Rules Lawyer debate.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I can't determine if this thread has turned into an Alignment debate or a Rules Lawyer debate.

I'm regretting even getting involved. Its just sad.

 

[Swanosaurus]

I can't determine if this thread has turned into an Alignment debate or a Rules Lawyer debate.

Well, I think when someone claims that the only relevant perspective on a problem is a lawful neutral one, they should expect some pushback.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Every creditor is going to be in the red when the dust settles.

Sure, but some will be a lot more red than others.

Financial interest?

You're a lawyer, are you not? Get paid for lawyering? Ergo a financial interest in defending clients, and trying to ensure that when the dust settles they are the least out of pocket.

 

[Cergorach]

Big business is much better protected than consumers or small businesses, unlike say Europe

While consumers are better protected in the EU specifically (the EU is not the whole of Europe), that has limitations, especially during bankruptcy!

I live in the Netherlands (EU) and when a webstore goes bankrupt, they are not only allowed to keep taking orders they can't realistically fulfill, they are required to keep taking orders they can't realistically fulfill. I've been on the consumer end of this before. If the company owner doesn't do this, they can be held personally liable for the debts. The reason why people start limited companies is to isolate your personal assets from your business assets, so when things go wrong, you can't be easily held personally liable. So this is how it works always! Not just often, always! You often don't hear about it in the media because most other businesses are a bit more professional then to start gofundme's...

And normally in the US you pay with a credit card, so you take it up with your cc company and chances are that you get your money back. Credit cards in the EU, specifically the Netherlands are not the default payment method online, it's done via direct bank-transfer (often via Ideal), so the bank does not have the ability to get your money back and you're not insured. So as a consumer, you're money is gone and you're not getting the product. Did you warranty products with the store (consumer warranty protection is with the store that sold you the product), you're not getting your product back. Store bankrupt, no more consumer protection warranty for you. So much for better protection for consumers from (big) businesses in the EU... Just because we're protected in certain ways does not mean we're protected in all the ways.

When you send money, when you send product, it's no long your money or product. When a company goes bankrupt, there's a LONG line of creditors, and the priority order is generally from biggest to smallest. When it's a webstore, it's generally the consumers left holding the bag, with a wholesaler it's generally the small companies sending stock holding the bag.

Some numbers for the Netherlands: In 2024, 1 in 540 companies went into bankruptcy. We have 2.3+ million companies in a tiny country of 18 million people. Just look up the bankruptcy numbers in the US, how many companies there are, etc. So a TON of companies go bankrupt every year, and the same things happen, Diamond isn't an exception, it's the rule.

~65% of the businesses here are small to medium businesses. Often run by people that might have just enough business sense to stay afloat, but certainly no deep knowledge of how things actually work (legal). They tend to run on assumptions and often get into huge troubles when their assumptions don't match reality. They often either don't have the resources to spend on experts in a specific field or are just plain unwilling to spend that money. No wonder they get in trouble... Like this.

I've been running a business for 25+ years, in the early 2000s I operated a webstore for pnp RPGs. I still had my dayjob luckily, because I made mistakes running a business, I paid for them with my own money. I eventually stopped selling pnp RPG books because other accessible options that were often cheaper became available (the main reason why I started the webshop was because there were no cheap easily accessible options available). I have considered running a physical store full-time, and running a pnp RPG publishing company, I never did because from the leasons learned, the risks were to high and the payoff too low. I have been IT freelancing for ~17 years, and you sometimes just don't go with a client or supplier because you don't trust they are either around long enough to pay/supply you or if you expect legal trouble with earlier interactions. Especially with suppliers you spread the risk and if you can't you'll have an exit strategy in place. This is something which larger companies often plan for, smaller companies often don't unless they hire out for such expertise.

Way too many people here are judging with their gut, instead of what's the law, or how to actually run a business. Is it fair? Hell no! But you should know that before actually starting a business. As someone from IT, I would say: RTFM! before starting a business.

What I don't get is that this happened before (see the example earlier in the thread, but it happened more often then that), didn't they learn from that (publishers I mean)? Green Ronin has been around for 25 years, Chris Pramas and Nicole Lindroos have been in the business for ~35 years... They should have learned by now... I can only assume that they took calculated high risks and that went wrong. This happens. You sometimes (need) to roll the dice, and sometimes that won't go so well. The art of (staying in) business isn't maximizing profit, it's minimizing risk.

The reason why I responded to this thread is because this 'news' is all over the Internet and most twists that are given is "Diamond is bad!", as if this is news... Diamond has been in business and Diamond was already a crap company way before Green Ronin or Enworld existed, and companies kept using them, while they knew they were bad news. Just talk to some retailers that did business with them in the 80s and 90s... And what got my hackles really up was that the reporting 'news' sites essentially framed Green Ronin as blameless victims. Diamond F-ed up, but so did Green Ronin, and I don't see Diamond running a gofundme... Don't get me wrong, Green Ronin did/does some amazing stuff, the launch of WFRP 2e, The Book of the Righteous, Freeport, etc. I own them all! But they F-ed up as well and are now dumping that soley on the goodwill of the fans.

 

[Swanosaurus]

But they F-ed up as well and are now dumping that soley on the goodwill of the fans.

How is asking their fans for help "dumping" it on them? As far as I am concerned, even if you f-ed up, it's perfectly fine to say: "Look, this went really badly for me, can you help me out?" After all, I'm free to say "No, I'm really sorry that has happened to you, but it's not my problem." As I am free to say: "I'll contribute a little because I feel that it doesn't hurt me, and if a lot of people are willing to contribute, maybe that'll actually help me."

There are a lot of situations where people may have contributed in some way to their own bad luck, but others might still feel that they do not deserve what is coming their way, and therefore, are willing to help them out. Nothing wrong with asking for it, nothing wrong with refusing.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Sure, but some will be a lot more red than others.

Yes, some are in deeper than others.

You're a lawyer, are you not? Get paid for lawyering? Ergo a financial interest in defending clients, and trying to ensure that when the dust settles they are the least out of pocket.

No, I'm not a lawyer.

Bankruptcy court isn't really that sort of lawyering, either.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Don't get me wrong, Green Ronin did/does some amazing stuff, the launch of WFRP 2e, The Book of the Righteous, Freeport, etc. I own them all! But they F-ed up as well and are now dumping that soley on the goodwill of the fans.

That goodwill won't count for much. If they don't have a legal fund in the tens of thousands, they might as well not bother.

 

[Aldarc]

"I haven't bought anything from Green Ronin since 3.X era; therefore, it's clear that no one else has either."